@catch22 - Hey there catch- I'll tell you true: Having almost fried myself a few times with the typical 400 to 800 volt DC vacuum tube power supplies I had absolutely no reservations about adapting to the 5 and 12 vdc solid state supplies. None at all.
Take care- OJ

A bit more drift in this thread, for those inclined towards some more history.
Hi @Old_Joe We had similar paths in early electronics. Mine was via the USAF and later with the DOD. I still have some early books about transistors and microchips. Damn, I'm thinking we are getting older, eh?
KW-26 crypto unit
KY-9 encrypted phone
KY-9 encrypted phone, 2
KG-13 solid state crypto
KW-26 decent write up and photos. The card readers that set the crypto codes every 24 hours used a type of IBM paper punch hole card. As I recall, the secondary power supply transformers had outputs of several hundred volts to operate all functions. Not a good place to make a mistake with a hand in the wrong place.
USS Pueblo capture and crypto equipment, 1968; if you're inclined to read a bit of military history.
Lastly, on site equipment destruction; if necessary. Thermite Equipment Destruction. The Thermite Incendiary Grenade is used primarily to provide a source of intense heat to disable equipment or for general demolition or disruption. The flare burns from the base producing intensive heat sufficient to burn through up to 2mm steel plate.

Since GLD inception 11-18-2004 recent history:
CAGR SPY 10.07% VBINX 60/40 7.38% and GLD 8.52%.

Interesting. Since inception GLD has done a little better on average than VBINX. However, VBINX’s inception date is about 12 years earlier (1992).
I agree with FD that gold hasn’t been a good investment compared to stocks. Can’t give you a good reason to own it. It does receive some attention from the financial press and is held by many central banks. There have been brief periods over the years where it outperformed many other investments. Very pretty stuff to look at I think. But that’s in the eyes of the beholder.
Possibly of interest - Costco selling as much as $200 million in gold bars monthly

I agree that Schwab is better at providing access to institutional class shares. Above, I wrote: What Schwab did right was reduce the mins on lots of funds (including institutional share classes)".
Though more does not necessarily equate to better. Brokerages have been touting the number of funds on their platforms for decades. What matters is whether the platform offers what you want; not the gazillion funds you don't care about. Still, the more offered on a platform, the more likely it is that the fund you want is offered there.
Since day one, Fidelity has lagged Schwab in offering cheaper shares. Day one (more or less): Schwab offers Neuberger Berman investor class shares NTF, Fidelity offers Neuberger Berman Trust class shares (with an added 10 basis point fee) NTF. Fidelity currently pulls the same stunt by offering Pimco I3 shares (e.g. PIPNX) rather than class I shares (e.g. PIMIX) for an extra 15 basis points in ER.
Since I'm poking around at brokerages, I'll see what Schwab is willing to do for me about its transaction fees. They told me that they're getting many queriers from current VBS customers but I was waiting for tomorrow (Monday) to broach fees, promotions, etc.
Circumstances change over time.
Indeed. It used to be that M* premium screener and associated human-written fund reports far surpassed what Schwab and Fidelity provided. (For a short period of time in the 90s(?) Schwab provided free M* reports to customers.) Now one is stuck using tools that are designed to present only the funds offered on brokerage platforms.

There are institutional share classes and institutional investors. Schwab has designated more funds as accessible only to institutional investors / advisory platform; some of these funds are accessible to retail at Fido but the institutional share class of these funds at Fido is very high ($1m?) compared to at Schwab
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
AQR institutional class shares, e.g. QDSIX (an MFO Great Owl) are as you described - available only to institutions at Schwab and available for a seven figure min ($5M) at Fidelity.
Allspring (formerly Wells Fargo) institutional class shares, e.g. WFMIX (another MFO Great Owl) are available only to institutions at Schwab but open to retail investors at Fidelity. In an IRA (and only in an IRA), Fidelity sets no min. One could buy $50 worth for $99.95 including TF.
a CD of any bank that has the potential to be forced by regulators/ FDIC to be taken over by another bank, the acquiring bank is allowed to change the interest rate on the CD for the remaining time period prior to maturity - generally speaking.
Yes, but. There is an out. If the rate is changed, the saver is allowed to get out without penalty. The risk is in having one's long term rate lock broken. A saver does not face an unexpected liquidity risk; in a sense just the opposite.
https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/banking/facts/payment.html
(See: How does a bank closing affect interest accruing on my deposits?)

Circumstances change over time. When I was still employed and younger, I was rather aggressive investor, traded often, and used Wellstrade Brokerage, because I was given 100 free trades a year. When I retired, my wife and I moved to a smaller city, to be close to my children and grandchildren. With that move and retirement, I decided to transfer my brokerage assets to Fidelity--that was a good experience for me until Fidelity started eliminating many of the Institutional share class funds, and replacing them with a different share class. I was not pleased with that decision by Fidelity, and decided to switch from Fidelity to Schwab Brokerage, because Schwab was still offering those Institutional share class funds that Fidelity was closing. Schwab also incentivized me to make that brokerage transfer, by offering to reduce the Transaction Fees, for the Institutional share class funds, to only a fraction of the normal Transaction Fee. It was also helpful that only Schwab had a brokerage office in the small city we had moved to. That was especially comforting to my wife, knowing she could go to the Schwab office for assistance, if she outlived me. Of the 3 brokerages I have used, Schwab provided me the best overall menu of funds, best fund research tool, and the most institutional share class funds. When I cashed out of the market in 2022, I had such a large amount of cash that I was able to invest in SNAXX as the Money Market fund that paid the highest rate. SNAXX has been paying close over 5.4% for most of 2023, and some of 2024, but recently dropped to around 5.3%. I am willing to hold larger amounts of cash in SNAXX for liquidity reasons, and wait for the CDs in highly rated Banks. I did decide to transfer a large chunk of money out of Schwab in 2023, to my Capital One Bank account, because they were offering CDs at a 5.25% rate, and if I needed to sell those Bank CDs early, my penalty would be just 3 months of interest. I prefer Bank CDs over Brokerage CDs, for liquidity reasons, but I am at my maximum FDIC insured amount for Capital One.

"In contrast, SUTXX was virtually 100% (99.61%) state tax exempt."
@msf - quite some time ago you pointed that out to me, and I changed our Schwab MMKT account to SUTXX. Thanks again for that suggestion. I have no idea how I would function financially without the good suggestions from you MFO folks.
Thanks to all of you- OJ

i wonder -- how's the fund do with california taxation, if you know. also, how do you determine when SUTXX makes more sense than higher-paying regular MMs?
and what's your thinking about BOXX, if'n you think about it at all?

There are institutional share classes and institutional investors. Schwab has designated more funds as accessible only to institutional investors / advisory platform; some of these funds are accessible to retail at Fido but the institutional share class of these funds at Fido is very high ($1m?) compared to at Schwab
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
AQR institutional class shares, e.g. QDSIX (an MFO Great Owl) are as you described - available only to institutions at Schwab and available for a seven figure min ($5M) at Fidelity.
Allspring (formerly Wells Fargo) institutional class shares, e.g. WFMIX (another MFO Great Owl) are available only to institutions at Schwab but open to retail investors at Fidelity. In an IRA (and only in an IRA), Fidelity sets no min. One could buy $50 worth for $99.95 including TF.
a CD of any bank that has the potential to be forced by regulators/ FDIC to be taken over by another bank, the acquiring bank is allowed to change the interest rate on the CD for the remaining time period prior to maturity - generally speaking.
Yes, but. There is an out. If the rate is changed, the saver is allowed to get out without penalty. The risk is in having one's long term rate lock broken. A saver does not face an unexpected liquidity risk; in a sense just the opposite.
https://www.fdic.gov/consumers/banking/facts/payment.html
(See: How does a bank closing affect interest accruing on my deposits?)

"It’s been just fantastic watching the evolution of technology over my 78 years"
For sure. At around 10 yrs old I started getting interested in electronics... it was all vacuum tube technology then, of course. I learned all of the basics from the RCA Tube Manual, which was reprinted every year with the latest technology updates. The front section of that manual contained a concise textbook on the basics of vacuum tube technology, and the rear section contained diagrams and parts lists to build lots of interesting stuff that actually worked quite well.
At 18-21 yrs I was an electronics tech in the US Coast Guard, still using the very latest in vacuum tubes, but reading here and there about some marvelous new thing called a "transistor" being developed by Bell Labs.
At 35 yrs there was a new RCA Transistor Manual, which contained concise sections on understanding and building solid-state technology. Transistor radios were really cool.
At 45 yrs I was working for SF Public Safety, and we still had a small amount of very antiquated vacuum tube radio equipment. I was one of the two technicians there who actually knew how to service that stuff. All of the other techs knew only the "solid state" electronics which constituted almost all of our communications equipment.
At 55 yrs we began to see the first inroads of the latest/greatest communications gear now using computers, microprocessors, and this new thing called "software". I was the first in our shop to buy an Apple Mac+, which I used to design the then-new 911/Public Safety Dispatch Center in San Francisco.
At 63 yrs I became the first in our shop to use a newly installed system to centrally monitor and control all of our many remote radio and communications sites, and enhanced that system to include many operations not originally contemplated. That system is similar to those now in wide use to control electrical distribution, water, oil, and gas pipelines, and other public utility systems. Many of those systems are under constant threat from hacking attacks by bad actors. In SF we saw that coming, and while using essentially the same type of technology, no part of our public safety system has any interconnection with the internet.
At 65 yrs I said "enough", and retired. No smart phone, thank you. No wonderful apps to let me do almost anything, including getting hacked every other day by some new bad guys. One stupid flip-phone to use voice and text. A bunch of decent Mac computers to let me do almost anything that I need to, with, so far at least, nothing being hacked.
Now at 85 yrs that's the story of my personal evolution of technology, and I'm quite happy with it.

What purpose is RPHIX currently serving in a portfolio? Perhaps, looking for active management in anticipation of drop in yields at the short end? But at 1% ER? I think @WABAC or some one else already commented recently about this high ER. Also, one can see why @rforno’s complains about high ER on some money market funds.
YTD, USFR has kept up with RPHIX with lower volatility. I will be surprised if there are not MM with lower volatility and similar 3 mo return as RPHIX.

Every time frame I have looked at (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, and 5 years) RPHIX has outperformed USFR. Expense ratios can be important, but ultimately don’t matter if the returns after the expense ratio are better.

I have only two options, 99+% MM or 99+% in the market. Then I look when to sell.
Since 11/2022, it keeps saying 99+% invested. Right now it's not even close to a SELL signal.

There are institutional share classes and institutional investors. Schwab has designated more funds as accessible only to institutional investors / advisory platform; some of these funds are accessible to retail at Fido but the institutional share class of these funds at Fido is very high ($1m?) compared to at Schwab. Those with access to institutional share class of all funds at Schwab, please share how the rest of us can get the same access. Also, some funds outright are available only to institutional investors at Schwab but are available to retail at Fido (E.g., QDSNX).
(Fido allows one to convert investor class to institutional when the minimum is reached if the fund allows conversion- no additional fees.)
The friction with CDs is illiquidity, early withdrawal penalties, etc . Many investors, even those that will not take any credit risk on a portion of their portfolio, pay for the psychological security of liquidity by not buying CDs even when they know the probability of them needing to tap into that portion is near zero. Perhaps, to be human is to be irrational. Having said that if you are buying a CD of any bank that has the potential to be forced by regulators/ FDIC to be taken over by another bank, the acquiring bank is allowed to change the interest rate on the CD for the remaining time period prior to maturity - generally speaking. That is not a good excuse not to buy CDs of well capitalized banks but the liquidity, convenience, etc. are good excuses in my book! Cut people some slack (psychological indulgence).
@yogibearbull, Thanks for the recap of VMRXX.

What purpose is RPHIX currently serving in a portfolio? Perhaps, looking for active management in anticipation of drop in yields at the short end? But at 1% ER? I think @WABAC or some one else already commented recently about this high ER. Also, one can see why @rforno’s complains about high ER on some money market funds.
YTD, USFR has kept up with RPHIX with lower volatility. I will be surprised if there are not MM with lower volatility and similar 3 mo return as RPHIX.

@Sven - Naw - No apology necessary. I can’t speak for others on how they use technology. Just wanted to make clear I’m not anti-technology - except for not wanting to carry a “live” telephone in my pocket everywhere I go.
It’s been just fantastic watching the evolution of technology over my 78 years. I used to have to compute grades for kids on a big loud clunky mechanical adding machine. Took hours and hours after work at the end of a marking period. Then in about 1975 I bought a simple plug-in desktop calculator at Montgomery Ward for around $100. What a marvel it was. Made my job so much easier. Later - probably in the 80s - I purchased a Commodore VIC-20, my first computer. Fun to play with but close to useless for anything except playing games. Bought an Apple 2-e sometime after that. Big leap. Than in the early 90s my employer bought us all an IBM computer that ran Microsoft. (The trade-off was that we had to commit to a number of hours of in-service training after work.) On and on it goes …
Take care Sir

DIfferent strokes for different folks.
Geographic proximity will vary from person to person. There's a Schwab office just a five minute walk away from me. (The walk to Fidelity is about an hour, i.e. 3 miles, but it takes me over a national landmark, with views of a national monument and a local landmark.) More important to me is that Fidelity will notarize papers for me and give me a medallion stamp on the spot while the Schwab office doesn't have a notary on staff and sends papers to its back office for medallion stamps.
I opened a Vanguard taxable account precisely for access to a MMF, specifically VUSXX. SNSXX pay ¼% less, while FDLXX with a whopping 42 basis point ER isn't even yielding 5%. Vanguard isn't and has never been my preferred brokerage, but it has offered fund products I could not match elsewhere.
Years ago I (re)opened a Schwab account because of its (then) high interest checking account that provided an ATM card with no foreign exchange fees and full rebates. As with Vanguard, that's not something that would make Schwab my preferred brokerage, but at the time it was enough to get me in the door.
What Schwab did right was reduce the mins on lots of funds (including institutional share classes). There's often a reduced min at Fidelity as well for institutional shares within IRAs, but you wouldn't know this without an account where you can make test trades. The downside at Schwab is that each purchase will cost $49.95 (or more), while Fidelity usually charges $5 when investing "automatically".
Someone pointed out to me that Schwab also has an automatic investment system for funds. But when I called Schwab on Friday to ask about this, I was told that the only funds that are eligible for auto invest are NTF funds. (Perhaps the rep was mistaken?)
When I explained that I was looking around for a VBS replacement, the rep asked for contact info so that he could send me some information. He would also have my local office contact me to provide an overview of services. I agreed and will see what I hear from them soon.

Since GLD inception 11-18-2004 recent history:
CAGR SPY 10.07% VBINX 60/40 7.38% and GLD 8.52%.

@hank, I sincerely apologized if I came across of looking down on the posters here with respect to technology. But I am not. For sure, the internet age has enabled us to become better and well informed investors. I am typing on my iPad now but that is something I would do on my desktop Mac 10 years ago. One day when Siri would able to take diction accurately and that be another level of communicating.
We love our smart phones and they are ubiquitous in our daily. We view them as a tool and not being enslaved by them. Guess everyone have have different level of usage and sharing, thus our experience differ. We don’t use social media, Twitter and social media in order to avoid being overloaded. Hope this help to explain where I am coming from. Again, I apologize.

All I'm going to say is that Schwab reps have been waiving my I share fees for over 7 years. I'm not going to tell you how. It's not a policy you will find anywhere, just as they will match other brokers offers for cash rewards when you transfer money.
I ask for the moon and get a lot.
Schwab only charges one time fee to buy, never to sell, just as Fidelity.
Another example, I did a lot of guestimating how much we should convert from TIRA to Roth, but I wanted to see if I can get it from Schwab. My rep told me they can do. They assigned me a very knowledgeable person from their wealth management and that guy told me he has done this more than 10 years, they wanted $300, I said I will pay nothing, they agreed. We spend several hours collecting info, running his tools, and analysis.

Fidelity since 1986. Always been the best, still the best. I had a Schwab acct for a couple of years (a few years ago); the customer service was awful.

Based on the timing, I'd guess the explanation is that MrRuffles is a Schwab Private Client. This is a new feature added July 10, 2023, and includes a dedicated rep.
Schwab press release
These dedicated reps, even credentialed ones, are more salespeople than advisors.

As part of these new experiences, all HNW and UHNW clients have access to a dedicated Schwab consultant who is responsible for their overall relationship with Schwab at no additional cost to them. ...
I received written responses from Michael Cianfrocca, my media contact at Schwab. He advised me that:

1. The new services aren’t advisory.
   
2. The dedicated financial consultant will primarily connect clients to different resources at Schwab, which are not free.
   
3. While some financial consultants are CFPs, their “primary role” is acting as a concierge and directing clients to Schwab's relevant services.
   
4. The financial consultants are not fiduciaries.

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2023/07/19/schwabs-insurance-leverage-marketing-solin

VMRXX: 5.28% SEC yield + 0.10% ER = 5.38% gross yield
VMFXX: 5.27% SEC yield + 0.11% ER = 5.38% gross yield
Vanguard taxable MMF table
For more safety (backed by full faith and credit of Treasury), VUSXX has a gross yield that's a basis point lower. Repos (used by the other funds) are overcollateralized with government securities but are not directly backed by the government.

The role of MMFs as cash investors in repos has increased over the last 20 years. One reason for the increase is the growth of assets under management in government MMFs, which are required to invest at least 99.5% of their assets in cash, U.S. government securities, or repos collateralized by cash and government securities.

https://www.sec.gov/files/mmfs-and-repo-market-021721.pdf